Treason of Words

The long-awaited day is nigh. The lovable but aloof Class of '96 is finally drawing together to reunite. Not that we were ever terribly unified in the first place. What has a decade changed? it's easier for us to know in advance than it was for our parents. This here series of tubes was just getting popular when we graduated. Many of us have kept tabs on each other, and the advent of social sites has allowed close friends to remain so with much greater ease than ever before. One wonders if the Clas of '06 will even bother with a reunion, since they'll all already know where each one ended up, what they look like, and what they're doing. Even my best friends from high school are a bit distant now. I fear I was never an especially good friend myself. I can count on one hand the number of them whose homes I vistied, or whose parties I attended. I hope to reconnect some old severed, forgotten, or weakened bonds, and perhaps give being a friend another chance.

My favorite season. Nature, all about me, perishing. Stupid trees and grasses that vexed me with pollen in the Spring will soon go dormant. Annoying insects will die. A blanket of cool air will settle over the land and make it the best version of itself, with outdoor temperatures finally low enough to permit exploration. Here at home, the A/C is off, and the windows are open. The cool breezes are welcomed in, ironically bringing with them the sound of the A/C units of our fellow apartment dwellers. It's especially pleasant at night. The coolness of the night atmosphere is qualitatively different from that of the refrigerated air we tolerate in the summer. It feels, for lack of a better word, right. There's also something special about sleeping with only a screen seperating you from the outer darkness. Or, as it is here in the suburbs, outer semidarkness. I don't think there's a spot outdoors within two or three miles where a body won't find itself somehow artificial...